Music Review : Philharmonic Perks Up for Schumann

Carlo Rizzi’s second program leading the Los Angeles Philharmonic on Thursday at the Hollywood Bowl fell into two unequal parts. Before intermission, the orchestra sounded perfunctory if not lackadaisical. After it, the playing turned alert. Maybe someone had adjusted the amplification system. More likely, more rehearsal time had gone to post-break Schumann than to pre-break Liszt and Brahms.

The program began with Liszt’s “Les Preludes,” in which the conductor found few intimations of mortality, much less immortality. The start was promising in its frail, reticent voicing. But then followed a series of merely measured arcs, lacking urgency or thrust. Pastoral passages were more fully realized, but the conductor soon was hurrying to the climax, which emerged without full-throated splendor.

Vadim Repin was a vivid, hot-blooded soloist in Brahms’ Violin Concerto, bringing youthful spirit and vitality to an otherwise dutiful performance of the music. Or so it seemed. Perhaps the amplification system threw the balance off; the orchestra sounded rather thin and undernourished.

Repin was more successful in dramatic, fiery passages than in the brooding, darker moments, although he did play with a Romantic yearning not matched by the orchestra. Regretfully, he also sped through the first movement cadenza (attributed to Heifetz), emphasizing pyrotechnics at the expense of poetry. The mood of the movement never recovered. But his virtuosity served the music in the final movement.

Rizzi took the introduction of Schumann’s Fourth Symphony at a clip that could not reveal its architectural grandeur but his direction after that was as alert and taut, as lyric and vernal as the music demanded. He took the repeats in both outer movements.

Radio talk-show host Dennis Prager had preceded Rizzi to the podium to lead the national anthem, unfortunately with rigid gestures. Nevertheless, he was received warmly by the 7,966 in attendance.